As a Clydesdale endurance athlete I am struggling with how to ditch my belly fat. I am putting in longer and longer LSD runs and my muscle mass increases, my body fat on my arms, chest, and legs decreases, but my belly stays the same. If I eat too little I crash. My Garmin typically says that I have burned 3600 calories, and I have calculated my resting daily calorie needs at 2300. So that’s almost 6000 calories. I am learning that I need to slam down some big calories 30 minutes after a long session. This helps a great deal and wards off the big crashes. Today for example I was walking around in a mental and physical fog and crashed on the floor. We ate spaghetti, and Greek salad for dinner and I was ravenous. For the rest of the night I am clear headed and have much strength.
Often after a workout I crave a giant Coke. Yes 64 ounce seems to do the trick. If I am at home, it is 64 ounces of Tang. Yes I know refined sugar in a liquid form. But it seem to work.
Anyway, I am working through this and will figure it out, and hope to post my findings up on the blog. If any of you out their have worked through this already, please send me an email and I will post here or post a link to your blog.
Thanks,
Michael Carroll
Hi Mike! My sister lives in St. George. I’m hoping some day I can make a trip to visit her and spin off for a barefoot run with you. No schedule in mind yet. Just dreaming. She is an artist and did a large sculpture that sits in front of Santa Clara college. I don’t know if that is a community college or a religious school or something. If there is a college there, and if you see a sculpture of a girl fanning out her apron — then my sister carved it!
I’m not exactly a Clydesdale athlete, but I have lost about 20 pounds fat over the past 6 months or so. I was flabby and weighed in around 205 to 210. I am just under 6′ 0″ tall. Today I weigh around 180 to 185 lbs. All of my pants are now loose and my belts are cinched up all the way, so I’m sure much of my weight loss has been around my belly.
I think the main thing that helped me was the fact that I stopped drinking (most) soft drinks. At least I stopped drinking those that contained High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). My son works for a diabetes research firm, and he told us that HFCS is like a foreign substance to our bodies. We don’t know how to digest it, and it goes straight to fat, heart problems, and adult onset diabetes. So I have looked for it in everything I buy and avoid it like crazy. I almost have given up soft drinks — I have taken a liking to Rock Star Orange/Mango and a couple of other energy drinks. Interestingly, they don’t seem to affect my weight like Pepsi and Coke did. They contain Taurine, which is very helpful for metabolism.
For a little while I went on a dietary experiment where I was only eating a very large salad for breakfast. I thought I would be starving by 10:00, but actually it held me over quite well. I am thinking of going back to that. It felt good.
So my advice is that you cut out all HFCS from your diet. You’ll be surprised how many products its put in. This seems to be a uniquely American issue – we crave that sickeningly sweet taste or something. One thing I had to give up was most frozen juices! There are very few which do NOT have HFCS in them. That surprised me a lot. Its also found in bread, crackers, cereals, salad dressings, chocolate products, and on and on. Its a little hard to NOT ingest it. So I just try to eat as little of it as possible.
Ryan Whitaker
Vancouver, WA
Ryan,
Cant wait for you to come on down. You will have a blast. Interesting about the HFCS is that after a blazing run in the sun all I can think about sometimes is an ice cold Coke, or anything that is sweet and carbonated. In fact on my first 30 mile trail race that I did this last weekend I broke out a GURU energy drink because my body was again craving that sweet carbonation. It did satisfy. However on the next aid station I pulled in and saw a whole tray of watermelon, and I do not like watermelon. I wolfed down 4 pieces and it tasted like mana. On the last aid station, I thought maybe I will have the watermelon again, but I was like yuk, and ate the bananas instead.
I have been reading all of the labels and looking for HFCS. So I have been buying my Coke’s from MEXICAN Markets in the the glass bottles. It says sugar on the ingredient list and tastes oh so much better.
Thanks for your reply,
Michael Carroll
If you want to rid yourself specifically of belly fat those LSD runs will make it harder on you rather than easier. Longer durations of medium-high intensity cause release of cortisol without the accompanying hormones that negate it’s belly fat storing effects, this is why you see the fact diminishing everywhere but your stomach. Do more High intensity work, short burst of varying intensities. This kind of workout will cause a rise in testosterone, adrenaline, noradrenaline etc etc that will work with the stress hormone cortisol and trigger your body to let go of belly fat.
The HFCS suggestion is good idea but really if you are going to go that route than yo are going to look at your intake of all carbohydrates and make sure that yo can keep your blood sugar as stable as you can. Insulin is the devil when yo are trying to burn fat.
Drew,
Thanks for your response to my blog entry. After reading “Born to Run” this weekend diet and training have been on my mind with great intensity. Prior to training for longer and longer runs I had a lot of high intensity training sessions, but dropped them partly because of time and because I felt it would slow my distance running. Again your advice is greatly appreciated.
Michael Carroll
Michael,
I found your website from a link posted in a forum thread I started on barefoot running and VFFs. The whole thing started with curiosity about barefoot running, but I’m finding loads of other useful stuff on your site now. The web is amazing. I am also 42, originally from Idaho but now living in England (don’t ask, it’ a very long story). I’m into fell running/coastal trail ultra running but haven’t yet taken the barefoot plunge. Also like you, despite running 40-50 miles a week, I can’t get rid of the gut fat. Also like you, after a serious long run, I crave nothing more than an ice-cold Pepsi. Coke will do if Pepsi is not on offer. I am convinced there are some genetic issues here, but sugar is probably the ultimate culprit as Ryan suggests. American’s have been majorly done over by the sugar lobby and almost all products there areMUCH sweeter than anywhere else in the world (for a very sobering read on the subject, I suggest the book ‘Sugar Blues’ to anyone who eats food or drinks. It’s frightening what they’ve done to us). At the moment, I’m trying to establish an explicit eating plan that stops me from snacking (my big weakness) as I sit in front of a computer for 12 hours a day. I also just read Born To Run. Perhaps we should start eating just pinole and pinto beans and water. Just want to say a big thanks for your excellent website and especially for the detailed info about VFFs and barefoot running.
Craig
Craig, thanks for the reply and the great comments. Did you see the reply from Drew? I have made a few changes to my training regime. 1st I have been training with people much faster than me, and 2nd I have increased the intervals and sprints especially on hills, and 3rd I have dropped 2 long runs per week. From a diet perspective I have been trying to drink soda’s with only real sugar or cane sugar. I asked my friend Richard Hurd, a screamingly fast age group triathlete, if he craved carbonation during long runs. He said “No.” A little bit later he remarked – as he took a swig of diet coke – “that reminds me I’ve got to give up my 3 (64oz) a day diet coke habit.” I laughed… What parts of idaho are you from? I lived for a time in Priest River.
Born in Twin Falls but grew up mostly in Nampa, which is just outside of Bwaz, as my French travel agent says. Guess her pronunciation is probably more correct than Boy Z though. A year ago I did a run for charity coast-to-coast across England in 6 days (190 miles). It was my first ultra and was really a Nirvana sort of experience to be honest. Sort of weird how it all happened, but if you want a good read, check out ‘Life on the run: coast to coast’ on Amazon by Matt Beardshall. I had already planned to do the run, but then found his book and also hooked up with his coach ‘Mad Dog’ Mike Schreiber, an ultra running guru originally from Houston that now lives in Mexico. I’ve been in a great training routine ever since and recently finished the Endurancelife Coastal Trail Series of seven coastal trail marathons over the past seven months. If you want to see some beautiful pictures that will rival your wonderful scenery in Southern Utah in a greener, wetter sort of way, check out the CTS gallery on https://www.endurancelife.com. I do four runs a week. Two speed, one hills, and one long run. I have one total rest day and do upper body weights on the other two days. Despite all this, I still struggle with the gut. I’m shorter at 5′7″ and fairly stocky, don’t eat a lot, but do get a strong urge to snack while sitting in front of the computer all day long. I’ve removed most of the snacks and refined sugar from my diet and am really watching what I eat, especially the carbs, but not much change at all. Perhaps my body is right where it wants to be for what I do. On the C2C run, I ate basically what I do anyway and neither lost nor gained a single pound over the 6 days. I’ve nearly decided that if I have to go any more militant to lose the gut, life just wouldn’t be worth living. Doesn’t matter really. I run because I love running, not to lose weight. Just wish I was one of those people who can exercise and look like a Greek God to give some indication that I actually train quite hard. No justice. I still crave a Pepsi after a really long run though. I like hearing other people’s comments/experiences as there are so many different takes on the running diet. Thanks again for your great blog site.
Michael – toss the soda (diet as well) and replace as much of your diet with organic alternatives as possible.
A juice fast lasting 4 days or so 3-4 times a year will help as well.
Bottom line, 90% of your results will come from your diet.
Cheers,
David
Michael,
Changes in diet and running schedules are good suggestions, but sometimes belly fat, especially fat in the lower extremity of the abdomen, needs to be attacked with specific core work. Crunches and sit-ups are quite useless in the quest to reduce lower belly fat, and I am not a proponent of a hard-core (pun intended) wieght lifting regimen. However, a proven strategy such as basic pilates exercises 5-10 minutes a day can drastically improve muscle tone and fat loss in the belly.
While the exact techniques behind pilates exercises are simple, a little bit of practice is needed to master the ideas of “neutral pelvis” and “softening at the sternum” etc. Some research on the internet should turn up some great instructions on how to do some of the exercises in the Pilates Mat Series. I would recommend “hundreds”, “double straight leg stretch”, and “roll up” as great exercises to combat your belly fat.
Good luck!
John